BAN2 additional 140 houses on the west of Southam Road have been rejected which is excellent news. Let’s hope they drop this development altogether. The other side of Southam road has started with 510 houses

The Miller homes application has been refused. Many members were in favour of this development as it would have the least impact on the area. Out of all the applications presented to the planning committee this site was the only one that had positive comments and yet was turned down….so much for the Localism Act, so much for the council actually listening to it’s residents. We asked our local councillors to help us fight these developments, did they ? hell no. Except when it affected one of their own. We’ll hear all sorts of rubbish about how they haven’t done that. In reality they should have helped us FIGHT ALL of the developments. Shame on them, they’ve lost my vote in the future.

The Miller homes application was byfar the most thoughtout and well planned of all the applications. I really hope CDC get their just rewards and we see the removal of the planning department, the removal of the Chief Exec for being incompetant, and finally the local councillors for having no backbone and no diginity.

Though this may not be within our area – North of Hanwell Fields, it does show the council have yet again ignored comments from the residents of Banbury, and blatantly chose to forget the democracy of a public consultation with regard to the local plan.

This is a misrepresentation of public rights.

As voters, council tax payers and residents of Banbury we should expect our council to behave in a manner that is fit for purpose, presently I don’t we can say it is. It certainly does not have our interests in mind.

What are we doing about it ? Moira and I attended a meeting with Hanwell Parish Council to discuss what options we may have with regard to both BAN5 and BAN2, the answer is not a lot. We then discussed what we can do about the council, my view is that we shame them in to making changes. To do this we are going to raise a petition against them, hopefully to be timed in accordance with the planning inspector’s visit. I also received a call from the ITV program ‘tonight’ to chat about the possibility of being part of documentary about the effects of planning on local communities. After several more calls and the passing of information I have heard that unfortunately we came close to being chosen but ultimately the producer has decided to feature a local action group in the North of England. I had explained that not only are we effected by such large developments but so is Hanwell Village, as well as other communities around Banbury. Anyway the show is to be broadcast on the 8th August, 7.30pm ITV1. It will be very interesting.

Now the planning has been approved, Persimmon have been given 12 months to finalise their plans and a further 12 months to start the build. As yet Amber have still not submitted an application for the remainder of the BAN5 site. One detail in our favour now Bretch Hill has been approved is the council have their fulfilment of housing numbers, meaning we could argue that their is no need for further approvals.

I still maintain that these site have been approved prematurely to protect the precious South of Banbury, more importantly Saltway.

Next thing we need to do put together some demands for when the construction starts, for instance, a ban of construction traffic before 9.00am on Dukes Meadow Drive, No mud left on the road. Construction vehicles can only park on their designated land and not block DMD. You get the idea, so if any one has any particular concerns about the effects of the construction then please leave comments below.

Things are picking up a pace, Cherwell Council are sticking to this ludicrous idea of planning numbers by insisting the local plan is based on the old, out of date SE plan. This actually says a whole lot more about the council as much as their policy. They are infact the ones that are out of date. What we want to see is a clearly defined local plan that CDC can say with validity has been produced using the right methods, with the right skills for the right reasons.
As we have said time and time again the latest NPPF does not require such a number of houses over such a period of time. Using the NPPF, as they should, CDC only need to produce a small local plan which shows Bankside and Canalside. (these site constitute 12.6 years worth of housing). Our Latest Press Releases say it all.

We are arranging a meeting with the CDC councillors, we are planning for May 11th, 3pm at the Hanwell Fields Community Centre. If you are interested in attending then please contact admin via the contact page

Many of you will have received letters in the post today from CDC about changes to the development at Southam Road. It seems that someone, somewhere has engaged their brain and decided that the site would have a detrimental effect on the visual landscape of Banbury and the surrounding area. The numbers for this development have been reduced from the original 880 houses down to 600. The most significant reduction being on the area to the west of Southam Road (bottom of Dukes Meadow Drive) where the number of houses is now 90 from 370. However it I have also seen that Banbury Town Council are supporting this site to encourage the use of traffic calming on Southam Road. I think a few emails to Banbury Town Council may be in order as well !!!

April 2013 – Pandora/Rapleys latest plan – Reduced housing number of 370 down to 90